Jamie, tell us about yourself and your background
Since graduating in marketing, I’ve mainly worked on the agency side, for both smaller independent firms and larger multinational networks, serving a mix of local and global brands. I contribute to the industry as an advisor for the Alliance of Independent Agencies and as forum chair for a founder-based networking group called Helm. In my day job, I am Richard’s partner in crime as the CEO of Initials, which we founded nearly 20 years ago.
What is your approach?
My network is the spice of my life. It helps me solve problems today and see what is around the corner tomorrow. A glass-half-full mindset is who I am through and through. If something is possible, then it’s doable. I always aim to give people more than they expect. Nice opportunities then tend to appear more often than not.
What drives you?
Learning something new every day and sharing this knowledge with agency colleagues and clients alike. I enjoy meeting new people and exploring different environments in both work and social settings. I’ve noticed these areas seem to blend more nowadays.
Richard: I am the managing director and a founding partner of Initials ME, an independent retail and brand activation agency encouraging connected experiences. With nearly 30 years of experience on both client and agency sides, I am driven by delivering outstanding results for blue-chip brands while ensuring commercial success and longevity for my business. I guess I could be described as the string on Jamie’s helium balloon.
After graduating in Business Studies from the University of Westminster, I progressed through various agency roles and also dabbled on the client side before launching Initials in 2006 with Jamie. Since then, I’ve led the agency’s operations, strategy, and financial performance, building a team that combines expertise with creative energy. I have also held a non-executive position for a global Property Buyers Advisor business.
What is your approach?
Lateral thinking and rigorous planning are vital for effective marketing. At Initials, we combine data-driven insights with creative execution, which has helped us build successful partnerships with brands like Pepsico, The Gap Partnership, Pilgrims Foods, McLaren, and Pernod. Multiple industry awards demonstrate our commitment to excellence. I’m a pragmatist at heart, but I always prepare for the worst-case scenario, so nothing tends to unsettle me if things don’t go as planned. This approach has served me well over the past 20 years leading Initials. I believe in hiring brilliant people and then trusting them to focus on what makes them brilliant.
What drives you?
I’ve always been focused on delivering measurable outcomes for clients, the work has to WORK!. Leading by example, I encourage collaboration and continuous improvement, both for our team and the businesses we support.
How did you meet and what brought you together to found Initials?
Richard: I met Jamie at an interview; he was leaving his position as EMEA lead for P&G at a large network agency. He was interviewing me for that role. The long and short of it was that we clicked immediately, and over the following few weeks he persuaded me (it wasn’t a hard sell!) that joining him in co-founding a new agency could be a more interesting and ultimately rewarding challenge. We are likely one of the few founding partners who didn’t have an existing relationship before we launched. I think we were both clear from the outset that we had different but complementary skills that would allow clear demarcation right from the start. Over the years, our differing positions on things have been the cause of much laughter and eye rolling, but we have always remained firm friends, doing the very best for our business.
Tell us about Initials:
Richard: We unashamedly began as a sales promotion agency in 2006, specialising in FMCG. The original plan was never to become a large agency, just a very client-centric one. Selecting the right people and ultimately the right clients has been our secret. Every 4 or so years, we have the discipline to step back and reassess what clients truly want from their agencies, and this process has allowed us to pivot and stay relevant to their needs while refreshing our offerings. This journey has shifted us from a ‘do for me’ agency to a ‘help me think’ and ‘think for me’ agency, and I firmly believe we are at our best when we are solving client problems that don’t easily fit into a brief.
Our recruitment policy has been absolutely central to our success; there is no such thing as an ‘Initials person’ except that we tend to attract and hire an eclectic mix of independently brilliant people, brilliant in many different ways, but united by one core understanding: that if you put your name to something, it must make you proud.
Who do you serve?
At Initials, great marketing starts with understanding how people live, shop, and connect. As an independent agency rooted in FMCG, we help brands thrive across a fast-changing landscape that now spans baby care, pet nutrition, and the growing health and wellness market. We power customer conversion through a connected physical and digital experience. As 87% of GCC consumers use both digital and physical channels to shop, we design connected strategies that build awareness, affinity, and measurable growth in an increasingly integrated world.
What services do you offer?
There are four core areas of the business, all interconnected to optimise the consumer experience and drive conversion: Brand Development, Content Creation (channel-agnostic), Retail Activation, and Technical Solutions. In short, these skills help brands find their relevant meaning in their audience’s minds, create content that engages that audience and moves them down a purchase funnel, optimise that funnel through the retail experience, and do all of this through the lens of a digital device. The role of influencers in the ‘earned’ media channels has become highly pivotal in the work we do. In the Middle East, we are particularly focused on the connected retail experience and the importance of tying social and influencer content into the shopper journey in both online and offline retail.
How is your approach unique in the marketplace?
Because we focus on the entire consumer experience and how it can be improved, we are not trying to sell a specific product or service to our clients. We are both discipline and channel agnostic. Our speciality is figuring out how all elements of a brand’s story and offering come to life through a connected journey from awareness to conversion.
Our approach is also based on ‘situational understanding’, not just on where a brand sits in the eyes of its consumer but also on the context of the organisation itself. We constantly examine three specific areas: 1. Ambition – is everyone in the business aligned with the same goals, 2. Permission – are the correct stakeholders in place to ensure success, and 3. Resource – this can mean budget, but it also refers to internal resources to make things happen. We pride ourselves on working with client businesses as they evolve, and this has resulted in trusted long-standing relationships evolving.
What success have you had so far?
We will turn 20 next year and remain fiercely independent. We set up the agency in 2006, and all we have known since then is chaos! The global financial crisis, Brexit, the pandemic, the cost of living crisis, tariffs, etc. As an agency, we have learned to rise above such chaos and deliver exceptional performance for our clients, no matter what. We have longstanding relationships with many of them, including PepsiCo for 17 years, and businesses of that calibre don’t stick around if an agency isn’t performing at its best. In 2024, 100% of our clients said they would recommend Initials, and in our most recent employment engagement survey, when asked, ‘Knowing what you know now, would you reapply for your job?’ 100% of staff responded positively.
As an independent, we don’t have a network sitting behind us to assist if things get tough, our work has to work, or clients don’t come back for more, it’s as simple as that, and we wouldn’t have it any other way because it elevates our thinking and delivery principles.
Why have you chosen to expand to the Gulf region?
The positivity and can-do attitude of the region are infectious; in many other parts of the world, you face headwinds when pursuing new and disruptive ideas. In the GCC, however, there appears to be the opposite, a favourable tailwind that fosters innovative and entrepreneurial thinking. We have come not only to observe how our approach and mindset can thrive in such an environment but also to learn from the region and assist in developing work to the same high standards worldwide.
Networks serve eighty per cent of the market, while twenty per cent is handled by independents. Considering the recent global performance of network agencies, there is an opportunity to
expand the market share of independents. To achieve this, we must excel in strategy, creative output, and client service, consistently delivering five-star performance.
What is the biggest challenge facing retail companies in the UAE right now?
Although the region offers excellent opportunities, it also faces internal challenges. Rising operational costs for securing talent and retail space are increasingly difficult for small retailers. More importantly, competition from large global digital platforms that offer a wide range of products quickly and at minimal prices is a significant issue. In such a landscape, consumers/shoppers become more price-sensitive and less brand loyal, frequently comparing prices and shopping across different platforms for the best deal. In a market competing on speed and convenience, there will be a point where brands will have to look at a different way in, with a more connected experience.
This is where our focus on connected experience comes in: it’s about not only building brands but also creating retail experiences that deliver value to the consumer beyond just speed and price. It’s about how you can encourage brands and retailers to look beyond the functional benefits of their products and start emphasising the emotional benefits of not just the product but the shopping experience.
As a results driven agency, how do you measure the success of a campaign?
The key to success is a clear definition of specific KPIs for each task from the start. Basic questions like ‘what does success look like’ and ‘can we measure it’ must be asked and answered. This naturally varies from client to client and brief to brief. I have always focused on delivering incremental volume that positively impacts a client’s business, but I recognise that some activities serve as a precursor to increasing volume. I would always encourage a client to map their campaigns so you can see how each step hands off to the next, aiming for the ultimate goal of commercial impact. Whether it involves brand perception, purchase frequency, basket spend, penetration, or abandoned baskets, bounce rates, or engagement, it’s all about data and its integrity. The industry must avoid at all costs producing work that ‘the best it ever does is not go wrong’.
Do you have a case study you can share?
Over the last 3 years we have partnered with PepsiCo globally to audit the global complexities of different retail environments and create best practice guidelines rooted in deep insights discovered by our teams. This process has allowed us to create a standardised approach to understand, test and exploit the purpose and roll of comms in each channel and sub channel. We defined and redefined personas and mapped cross channel consumer journeys to ensure optimum placement of both visual and verbal messaging on the path-to-purchase. The results show strong commercial efficiency in retail activation efforts, primarily by driving higher conversion rates.
What is your current focus?
Powering conversion through a connected experience and ways to enhance ‘brand’ as a key factor in product selection within a mature Q-commerce environment where speed is paramount. Data plays a crucial role in this process, with the ability to extract specific insights from a consumer’s unique data profile enabling truly customised value.
What is your vision for Initials in the UAE?
Over the next five years, we aim to expand the reputation we have built in the UK across the GCC, known for offering elevated thinking to brands seeking to thrive in a challenging and constantly changing world. Our focus for the coming year is clear: to establish a strong presence with our founding clients and to deliver work that both we and they can be proud of.
Where can readers find out more?
You can visit our website
